Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - How would you handle this situation?

We had someone come over and install new carpeting in our living room yesterday. We went and ordered the new carpet and a carpeting store, and they subcontract out to the installer. We elected to pay to have them remove our old carpet and move all of our furniture out of the way, etc. Well, once the installer (just 1 guy) was done, and had left, we noticed that there were several scratches, some pretty big/deep in our nice hardwood floor in the kitchen (he moved some of the furniture in there). I was at work, so my wife immediately calls up the carpeting place and tells them about it. They act disappointed/upset with the guy and said they would call him and have him come back over to take a look. A few minutes later he calls and says he will be over tomorrow to look at the floor.

My question is, what can we expect here? Who’s liable, the carpet store or this guy? Would he have insurance for this sort of thing? Am I going to be able to repair the scratches in my floor or would it just have to be replaced?

What should I do here? I've paid for about 1/3 the carpet price and I gave the installer a check yesterday for his labor. I still haven't paid the remaining 2/3 of the carpet price. Should I maybe hold out payment or cancel the check I gave the installer yesterday?

Patrick G, Welcome to the DIY Forums.
The installer "should" have insurance to cover any damages he causes. Right now, I would wait until he comes over and tells you what he is willing to do to rectify the situation. The carpet store shares some of the responsibility for subbing to insured installers. Take pictures of the scratches while they are fresh so if you end up taking legal action you will have "fresh" evidence. Good luck and post back with the results.

Since you went with a full service store, there is a good chance that legal action will not be needed, but make preperations anyway.
Yes, installers are insured, but they may not think they did it.
Case in point - a client told me my installer crushed in a grate along the side wall in a hallway, the grate was a wire mesh for the air flow. Well since he was stretching carpet in the hall, I thought that maybe he did actually do it. The installer insisted he did not, and to tell you the truth, I believed him. But we paid for the mesh anyway for customer satisfaction.
Well the client was nice enough to tell me that his son fessed up to damaging the grate, and we were payed back.

You may want to get estimated costs to repair right away.

Can you fix sratches in hardwood floors without sanding down the entire floor surface and refinishing from scratch?